@@leebrewer7394 Meant to post that seperately, I just happened to have been reading this comment. But, too late now to change that. But specifically, "The 1960s", or rather how the movement(s) that appealed to people (hippies, in particular). The old "catch more flies with honey" and all that.
Yeah, and while I'm on my soap box back in the 60s. People knew what a woman was ,and it was not a man wearing makeup that was put on with a Shovel and a cheap wig. As a black kid growing up my favorite shows were Bonanza., Raw hide ,Batman, and Star Trek, and most of those shows didn't have a single black person on it. And did not impede my enjoyment of them. Nobody back in the 60s were worried about seeing themselves on the screen. That's just a narcissism of this generation. At my school yard, there was nothing but black kids running around with those little steel lunchboxes that had pictures of TV shows like Lost in Space. Gilligan's Island and a Long Ranger, and I did not hear a single kid say. I could really enjoy these shows if the stars were black.
I always wonder if the 'narcissism' claim is giving them too much credit. Yes, it's about _them,_ but it's on a more practical level: if more roles are set aside for people like me, I have far less competition for roles.
The difference between the 60s and todays is today's woke "social justice" agenda has corporate sponsorship and institutional backing. The children of the 60s fought against "the man" and today they are "the man." Back in the 60s you could still walk into a movie theater and watch a movie without being beat over the head with "the message." The biggest movie stars of the day (Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, John Wayne) were still masculine men and not effeminate bitches. Popular music echoed the social revolution of the time, but it was so goddamned good that it was hard not to appreciate, even if you didn't agree with the message. Today it's all message and zero art. Nothing but empty platitudes backed by the iron fist of the establishment.
I noticed the big difference when the Greatest Generation started to get too old to be in power, and the Boomer generation started. It gave me a bad feeling to be honest.
It reminds me of George Orwell's Animal Farm. In the end, the pigs turned into the thing they fought against. That seems to be the fate of nearly every revolution.
"If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.” ― C.S. Lewis
Some good stuff in here, but I'm not sure that _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ 's message of shutting down all the insane asylums and letting all the mentally ill people become criminals or homeless (or politicians) was such a good message to be spreading, in retrospect
Wow! *"A bad sequel to the 60's"* is an excellent and apt description of today's troubles. Usually I'd want to say something like "a bad Asylum knockoff of the 60's", but that would imply too far of a separation between the engineers of the controversies and their philosophical and cultural genesis.
When Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan beamed that the lawless CHOP/CHAZ zone in her city would initiate a 'Summer of Love' , it was obvious to me that she wanted a "bad sequel to the 60's"
Well said, Chato. History is cyclical, and while I could have expected a retread of the 60's, I was NOT expecting an MMO version of the Spanish Inquisition.
Outstanding essay here, Chato! As a Conservative (in general), I wonder how my thinking would have been challenged by the events, conversations, and issues of the 1960's if I had lived through them. That being said, we don't know how good we have it today with the opportunities awaiting us if we would just stop listening to those whose only motive is to cause chaos and upturn the order of society.
Thanks to revisionist history across the Internet, it’s easy to forget the die-hard Republican Lucille Ball produced 1960s Star Trek and supported it because she believed in the optimistic outlook for the future. Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan were similarly “progressive” in that regard-along with Charlton Heston, who marched with MLK Jr. But facts are pesky for people in the 2020s.
Mr Chato…Great and thought provoking analysis. Gene Roddenberry seemed to be trying to push the boundaries of societal norms in his scripts for Star Trek TOS. Nichele Nichols was ready to quit the series because she felt out of place and uncomfortable but she only remained because Dr. MLK implored her to stay because as a black woman in those days in a leading role on a tv series was groundbreaking. Also, Roddenberry wrote in the script of Season 3 Episode 10 “Plato’s Stepchildren”, to have Kirk kiss Uhura . Supposedly, this was the first on screen interracial kiss on a tv series in entertainment history. People went berserk over that little scene. Though Roddenberry was trying to say something positive about the future between the races, he was not trying to preach or shove his hegemony down the audience’s throats.
What I remember about that episode is how respectful Kirk was to Uhura... I was maybe 17 and naive about the importance of the event... I just saw it as two favorite people in a bad situation acting respectfully towards each other.
We live in a time when people want immediate gratification. People nowadays don’t appreciate the progress that has been made and don’t have the patience that is needed for organic change to occur. They want all the world’s problems solved now. It would be nice but, realistically, change takes time.
Here's the thing, the 60s liberal movement was needed, civil rights, gender equality and racial equality desperately required an update, The neo left or todays left is another subject, its not needed and the pushing of the pendulum has gone way too far, 60s liberalism didn't come with White hate or Trans issues being pushed to minors. However ! The fallout from the drugs, heroin, acid, early crack cocaine...devastated an entire generation. The addiction and broken life's in the 70s from that movement, can still be felt to today! lll leave you with that denizen.
One reason why I put the 1960's Star Trek miles above all the other ones, was that it had balls. Too many people can't see past the colourful 60's sensibilities and realize the show was at risk of being cancelled on a near weekly basis because of the challenging stories they tackled. I can't think of a single Star Trek show since 1969 that ruffled anyone's hair since. THey just became too tame and safe. Star Trek SHOULDN'T be safe.
After the first 13 episodes it wasn't going to be canceled. Paramount bought Desilu with a loan based on syndication rights to MI, Star Trek and Mannix. Syndication then required at least 3 seasons 75-80eps and was usually more sucessful if the series was no longer on at night. That's why Gilligans Island and Lost in Space ended at 3 years....even though both were popular. The real trick was to keep NBC funding it for three years. Direct to syndication wouldn't really happen till the 80s, but was sorta a thing with british shows like The Avengers and UFO, Space 1999 in America. The threats of cancelation was often a bluff to keep the actors, writers and directors from insisting on more money.
@@STho205 this doesn't sound like a credible story, given how legendary the studio thought the show was unpopular - hence the cancellation. It's very well known that studios weren't looking at the youth demographic that loved Star Trek when it was on.
@@savageworks it is outlined in Justman and Solow's book "Inside Star Trek The Real Story" written as a memoir in the 90s. It takes the view from the day to day producers and executive's POV, by the last two remaining original runners. Yes the contract to sell 75 episodes into syndication was made with a promise to buy from a new UHF syndicate in March of 1967. At that point only 18-20 episodes had shot and aired. This is discussed in the last chapter, the one courteously describing Justman's last sentimental meeting of GR before his death. Roddenberry made up most of the stuff he liked to riff on at convention speeches and the box set VHS or DVDs. He told people what they wanted to hear, always with him as the lone hero. Another surprise: NBC requested/required more diversity on the bridge after Pilot2 in a memo Spring 1966. They wanted Black and Asian weekly characters sitting center shot. This came as Roddenberry was not planning to offer a role in the series to Takei. Roddenberry said....OK keep him and....I "know" an actress....
Watching your content makes me realize that I’m not alone in thinking our world seems to have gone crazy….maybe we have become too successful???Thank you.
Thank you so much for this, @Chato ! I recently had a conversation with one of my older teenagers about "equity" versus "equality." "Equity" means that all outcomes for all groups are mandated to be the same by government. "Equality" means that people are given equal opportunities for education and work in life and are rewarded by a free market as their performance merits; it requires equal treatment before the law and respect for property rights. Equity is a world of ever-shifting goalposts and necessitates the destruction of individual freedom; it inherently discriminates based on race, gender, and any other metric you can create to measure "oppression." Equality creates opportunity and respects individual liberty. I know which system I'd rather live under.
I was just a kid in the 60s and I remember it being a pretty tumultuous decade. I also remember begging my mom to let me go to Woodstock when I was 10 years old. Young people that are not intimately familiar with post-WWII history are going to be blind to a lot of things. Also, not everybody that is left of center is "woke".
As much as it’s the obvious comparison, Americans of the 60s vs Americans of now, the “revolution “ was way older than that. The Russians had thrown of religion, legalised easy divorce and birth control in the 1920s, and paid for that with a degradation of society only surpassed by the Chinese. Without an actual alternative, humanity threw off what took our entire history to create, like a spoilt two year old throwing it’s food across the room. Now, because that two year old is in their 60s and 70s, they would like to believe that the shear narcissism of their fight is somehow different from what happens now. It’s exactly the same. It’s not a poor sequel, it’s exactly the same shit show. Only a narcissist would argue that the rebels of the 60s were fighting for black rights and female liberation. They were rebelling, full stop. They won. They won a world where the emotional intelligence of a two year old now rules supreme.
Reality is that EVERY generation wants/needs to rebel against their elders. When we are young we are supposed to be that way as we start finding our way in life. Most of us fortunately grow out of that as we realize that life is real and it has precious little patience for those teenage thoughts based on (mostly partial/incomplete) understandings of politics.
Very well said across the board. I'll never say I'm anything but a left leaning Liberal, and I refuse to have that hijacked by these people who would completely demolish what those words mean as they do so many others. I 100% believe in Equality, not Equity.
Equality is for naive idealists. Nobody is ever truly equal to another in several aspects. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days.
@@georgejones5019 No, Equality is freedom and personal liberty. Equity is enforced quotas to push outcomes in the face of logic, sense, and a basic understanding of humanity.
@@BlazingOwnager You better go back to school as Equality doesnt mean that at all , low IQ weak betas like you are why your side was so easily hijacked ( because you guys to weak and stupid to stop it )
The important thing is that people have the opportunity to achieve their goals. If someone working in an Amazon warehouse wants, for example, to be a TV executive, like Chato enjoyed, they should have the same opportunity to do it that Chato had. That's all, no more, no less.
I grew up in the 60's also. The only thing for sure about comparing times is the music was better and the women were prettier back then, cars were cooler but not as safe as today and TV's are much better and bigger today.
"TV's are much better and bigger today." And weigh less. And about 50 years from now when the copyright expires on the 1960s and 1970s we will have something to watch on them.
Love your commentary and insight on the times. Thanks for covering topics so wide and varied! Swinging through the jungle of Knowledge is a pleasure with you Paul, as Phil Valentine used to say!
So true in every way Paul! I once heard a couple of mid-90's teens talking about how the 60's were so "bitchin!" and looked at them and smiled as, like you, a survivor of 'em, "Oh yeah! It was GREAT! We had Viet-Nam, Altamont, Watts, Chicago, drug od's, political corruption, and of course the threat of the Bomb! Swell times! Too bad you missed 'em!" and they just stared. BUT I MUST CORRECT YOU when you say people are EITHER too stupid OR too self-indulgent--as I know you must know....they're BOTH. :) Keep 'em coming!
Rebels Without a Cause...will fabricate their own. As a product of its time, TOS was very progressive but only because the 60s were so turbulent they needed a show like that. TNG was fine, but watching it recently was an exercise in trying not to roll my eyes. Almost every episode, the Captain would preach over how 'bad' things are for the guest aliens, and how awesome things are with the Federation. I try and just avoid soap box shows like that, for more nuanced and layers shows like The Expanse, BSG 2000, Babylon 5, etc....
I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and as chaotic as the 60s could be, there's a nasty undertone nowadays that wasn't present then. This is what happens when Billy Jack plays the long game and wins.
As a child of the 70's I don't have a personal frame of reference for the 60's outside of stories from my parents and reruns of old shows like Star Trek, but I still feel where you're coming from. RIP Tommy Smothers
It's not progress if it allows the underdog complete license to do whatever they want over others. It is a great way however to create favoritism, imbalance, and artificial division to keep everyone distracted.
I'm an older gentleman, like yourself, and I remember the 60s. It was a really transformative time. Our very perspactives on the world, our economy, and our norms were challenged. People these days are so trivial by comparison. Sadly many of our generation have been corraled into petty issues. Identity politics is all that exists. Gone are the days of challenging "the establishment", now the obsession with minutiae IS the establishment. Your tagline ( "be seeing you"), an homage to the terrific series The Prisoner, has never been more prescient.
To be fair it was with the generation in the 1960's where this idea that we are the most special generation ever, and the past were stupid, or evil started. It's almost insanely easy to trace all the issues with the sense of entitlement and "special" mentality right to the front door of the 60's. I don't think your generation was corralled into the petty issues, that was what they always were. It's why they failed in the end. It's the romantization of that time period that screwed up many of the later generations. Not blaming it completely, but the seeds were planted.
6:20 Yes... OG Trek solved all societal "problems" and showed an idyllic progressive future... yet Paramount has totally disavowed and erased the James T Kirk *character* for... -gestures broadly- something, I guess? It must've been television's first interracial kiss that was offensive?
I grew up with Smothers Brothers albums in the house, and I have vague memories of them and Pat Paulsen on TV (I was born in 1964). They gave me so much, i salute their comedic genius and bravery.
Yeah, you wanna talk about the 60s? I am a child of the 60s. Also I was born in 1960 and I tell you what as a black person. Seeing the civil rights movement, people talk more about race today than they did back then. You remember the 60s when both black and whites were equally as patriotic in America. both sides. Whether you are. Democrat or Republican All were pro capitalism? Unless you were a hippie.
Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek that is, was, and always be SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS. Roddenberry presented a question with each and every episode. Then asked viewers to think about how to address these questions and find answers to them. Woke on the other hand doesn't present any questions it just tells you WHAT TO THINK. Not doing so gets you branded an IST or a PHOBE for not being "GOODTHINKFUL" (sorry for the Newspeak reference, but you might as well hearing now as some Woker is going to drop it in a sentence soon enough).
I can remember in my southern Ontario high school assembly in 69, having US Army recruiters giving us a presentation to enlist in the US Army to help stop the domino effect in south east Asia. Yes, a foreign military came to Canada to find cannon fodder for their war. So being young skulls of mush, a year later all of the high schools in my city staged a walk out against the dress code so that we could wear blue jeans to school, LOL, and it worked.
I was thirteen in 1968 and my understanding of the larger world view was starting to take shape. The events of the late 60’s helped shape me into the conservative man I am today, for better or worse. Goodbye Tommy we’re going to miss you.
That's the inherent flaw with modern activism. You're trying to raise awareness by scaring people but admitting there has been any amount of progress is counterproductive to that effort. When you look at it objectively, the modern activists have accomplished almost nothing compared to their peers in the 60s and the last thing they can or will do is admit that, particularly if they're also getting a paycheck for their efforts.
We should all take a moment to compare time periods in history if we want perspective on today. Historical knowledge is, unfortunately, increasingly rare.
The problem is that you can't "imagine" what you don't know so it's never occurring problem for peoples 👀ツ ==> In the sense it's just not OBVIOUS like for people who know those things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Alos I thing right now censorship is much worse than in the 60s, yes as weird as it sounds. TV and movies aren't entertainment anymore, they also must taught people how they should think.
The original Smothers Brothers show was re-run several years ago and I saw all of it. The surprising thing to me was that it was NOT "The Smothers Brothers Political Comedy Hour". It was pretty much a comedy variety show with singing and sketches and very little politics. In 3 years there were probably only a dozen sketches that were actually political in nature.
Deep south conservative, but we watched The Smothers Brothers, dad was a Gunsmoke guy, didn't care for Bonanza...haha. He might get aggravated but we didn't tune out.
I'm a child of the 90s. I know that's nowhere near the 60s but with things like the first Gulf War, Oklahoma City Bombing, Waco, Columbine, 9/11, the Iraq War, the I-95 Sniper, the little things like canceling a dead movie star from the past is kinda first world.
Interesting and entertaining work as always. I'm trying to write a book that will help humanity pick up where 1967 and the Summer of Love left off. If the world ends, I did not succeed.
“If”. Now there’s a film I haven’t seen for a long time, not since the old Broadway Theatre in Hamilton shut down. I think I saw it in a double feature with “Oh Lucky Man!”. It was good preparation for seeing “A Clockwork Orange” (which I’ve seen a great many times).
Now compare the 1970's to today. You were 10 years older in your 20's & I was in my teens. Oh. My entertainment of the 60's was Saturday morning cartoons. Batman (mostly for The Joker & Catwoman (Julie Newmar) 😍) on ABC with The Green Hornet. My Avengers were John Steed & Emma Peel 😍😍. That British show.
I think they still had adults back in those days. Nowadays, everyone is perpetually 16. The scary thing is that there seems to be a developing "competence gap" between generations. Too many distractions and people no longer taking pride in competence. Also, people seem to have problems controlling their emotions as compared to previous generations.
I'm not super concerned about the culture war so much as I am the looming debt crisis, multiple wars abroad, and weakening diplomatic ties with China. Sure you had Vietnam, the Cold war, and some civil unrest in the '60s, but at least you had a decent economy, mostly intact families, and half the country didn't hate the country they lived in.
Watching movies from 1950 throught the 1970's Will tell you A LOT about what was going on in this country at the time. Its incredible how much was predicted.
Wasn't alive during the 60s but I can for sure say that things were better back then. The degenerate counter culture was up against a middle class America that still had a strong ethics and morals code, belief in God was stronger and the races were still segregated throughout much of the decade. Yes things were indeed much better.
I was a wee lad back then, but I loved the Smothers Brothers -- and still do today. Funny how timeless their "counter-culture" humor was/is still today.
The kids today seem like rebels without a cause. Their complaints seem based more on jealousy and entitlement rather than injustice, in spite of claims to the opposite.
Everything Paul says is true. Tom and Dick were dealing with a torrent of issues at the time, but they were fun and funny. In North America these days, everything seems to be boring tedious shit, things that were fun and exciting in the past are now time consuming and annoying. People that can't be cancelled are now attacked on a regular basis, this serves to undermine them. They spend an inordinate amount of time fighting the same stupid battles against their detractors, in turn making themselves boring and ineffective.
I was a liberal hippy back then.. and a conservative now… strangely I feel extremely consistent as I swung from the left to the right.. it’s the society around me that has demanded my changes of affiliation.
I would like to examine this from being born in 69 : what i saw was my parents trying to forge a new reality without an understanding of what it meant. what it meant was the complete destruction of anything that mattered - i know why we became Gen-X because we saw what my grandparents valued ment nothing to them and we became lost in terms of what we are. we should have fought to restore what our parents destroyed , and by that we are guilty for what has been wrought. The twentysomethings are a dangerous lot as they have been pre-programmed with hippie mentality with fascist ends. they are told what to think , not how to think(as you soo rightly pointed out Paul) and are running around in the cult of self(Chris Hedges) changing the world(i mean destroying it !) and will lead us into a new dark age if we don't stop them ! To know the true merit of a generation , listen to the thought process that makes them act and you get the colours of their flag .. it should be a very red flag to all of us !!!
They romanticized the 60's without realizing the major issues that it caused. Or the massive problems with its mentalities that its children adopted. The biggest being the destruction of the idea that we are all part of a chain of time, that we go thousands of years to the past and infinitely into the future. But we are simply a link. The 60's kids had this idea they were super special time and the best. And all those before were stupid or evil. That is one of the roots of the major issues we have today.
@@als3022 I think that hippie ethos was about believing in their own goodness that they would just figure out by just being - something they have in common with the little shits of today. turns out i saw what the end result of their cult of self - they destroyed everything ! the twentysomethings are going to do it with the endgame philosophy of fascism attached by indoctrination that used to be called education. the boomers had the best of modernity in economics and they followed their hearts desire and became complete capitalists in the 80's - their hippie ideals thrown right out to get the brass ring of power that they have hoarded ever since !
It seems as though those issues back in the day ( I can't speak personally about it as I'm but 35 years old) were more about helping others and what's going on today is baked in selfishness. Not just selfishness but also from a source of peer pressure. People being told to "believe what I say or suffer the consequences" rather than "Please take a moment to hear what I say & give your insight." Being an individual or thinking outside of the box feels like a sin & it all feels that way because it gets in the way of someone's self serving ends.
As someone who watched the early Apollo launches on a b&w (black and white, not Bower and Wilkins) tv sitting on the lounge room floor mere inches from the screen, I can safely say that the 60s were a time of real change. What have we got now? The breeze from the pendulum swinging just blew past the remaining hair I have left.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
"The Smothers Brothers were dealing with real issues, not multi-colored crosswalks that stain your shoes." Brilliant!
Nice summary.
I read a little seeing he had died, 2 other members of his family also died in 2023. Sad.
Also, good music, free sex and drugs tend to sweeten the deal.
@@hellacoorinna9995 wtf you talking about?
@@leebrewer7394
Meant to post that seperately, I just happened to have been reading this comment.
But, too late now to change that.
But specifically, "The 1960s", or rather how the movement(s) that appealed to people (hippies, in particular). The old "catch more flies with honey" and all that.
Yeah, and while I'm on my soap box back in the 60s. People knew what a woman was ,and it was not a man wearing makeup that was put on with a Shovel and a cheap wig. As a black kid growing up my favorite shows were Bonanza., Raw hide ,Batman, and Star Trek, and most of those shows didn't have a single black person on it. And did not impede my enjoyment of them. Nobody back in the 60s were worried about seeing themselves on the screen. That's just a narcissism of this generation. At my school yard, there was nothing but black kids running around with those little steel lunchboxes that had pictures of TV shows like Lost in Space. Gilligan's Island and a Long Ranger, and I did not hear a single kid say. I could really enjoy these shows if the stars were black.
I always wonder if the 'narcissism' claim is giving them too much credit. Yes, it's about _them,_ but it's on a more practical level: if more roles are set aside for people like me, I have far less competition for roles.
@@boobah5643 Sounds like you're talking about actors . I was talking about the general audience.
What a great point,narcissism, that's dead right, Top man.
@@davidobrien9362 Narcissism is DEAD ? Have you seen the crap Disney has been putting out . The Acolyte is nothing but a vanity project
@@davidobrien9362 Narcissism is DEAD ? Have you seen the crap Disney has been putting out . The Acolyte is nothing but a vanity project
The difference between the 60s and todays is today's woke "social justice" agenda has corporate sponsorship and institutional backing. The children of the 60s fought against "the man" and today they are "the man." Back in the 60s you could still walk into a movie theater and watch a movie without being beat over the head with "the message." The biggest movie stars of the day (Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, John Wayne) were still masculine men and not effeminate bitches. Popular music echoed the social revolution of the time, but it was so goddamned good that it was hard not to appreciate, even if you didn't agree with the message. Today it's all message and zero art. Nothing but empty platitudes backed by the iron fist of the establishment.
Nice. Thanks.
I noticed the big difference when the Greatest Generation started to get too old to be in power, and the Boomer generation started. It gave me a bad feeling to be honest.
Sir, you have summarized this so very well.
It reminds me of George Orwell's Animal Farm. In the end, the pigs turned into the thing they fought against. That seems to be the fate of nearly every revolution.
@@pineapplepizza4016 Hard to disagree.
"If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
― C.S. Lewis
There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake.
- also C.S. Lewis
"Progressive" seems to be one of those words that's been so badly abused, that it doesn't really have any meaning anymore.
Some good stuff in here, but I'm not sure that _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ 's message of shutting down all the insane asylums and letting all the mentally ill people become criminals or homeless (or politicians) was such a good message to be spreading, in retrospect
Hey, all I said was that it was a good movie. :-)
"The USS Daycare" I friggin' love it !
Wow! *"A bad sequel to the 60's"* is an excellent and apt description of today's troubles. Usually I'd want to say something like "a bad Asylum knockoff of the 60's", but that would imply too far of a separation between the engineers of the controversies and their philosophical and cultural genesis.
I was born mid-sixties. I saw culture go from respecting people who worked to venerating a bunch of unkempt hippies.
The hippies back then remind me of Portland.
When Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan beamed that the lawless CHOP/CHAZ zone in her city would initiate a 'Summer of Love' , it was obvious to me that she wanted a "bad sequel to the 60's"
Well said, Chato. History is cyclical, and while I could have expected a retread of the 60's, I was NOT expecting an MMO version of the Spanish Inquisition.
I've heard no one expects those.
"The Inquisition, let's begin
The Inquisition, look out sin...!"
"Nooooo one expects us!"
It's more like a revisiting of the Puritan movement in my mind.
I love how CC renders "denizens of the internet" as "Dennis of the Internet." Love every one of your videos.
Clearly a descendant of Dennis the Menace.
Dennis of the Internet just constantly trolls Mr. Wilson.
Outstanding essay here, Chato! As a Conservative (in general), I wonder how my thinking would have been challenged by the events, conversations, and issues of the 1960's if I had lived through them. That being said, we don't know how good we have it today with the opportunities awaiting us if we would just stop listening to those whose only motive is to cause chaos and upturn the order of society.
Thanks to revisionist history across the Internet, it’s easy to forget the die-hard Republican Lucille Ball produced 1960s Star Trek and supported it because she believed in the optimistic outlook for the future. Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan were similarly “progressive” in that regard-along with Charlton Heston, who marched with MLK Jr. But facts are pesky for people in the 2020s.
Mr Chato…Great and thought provoking analysis. Gene Roddenberry seemed to be trying to push the boundaries of societal norms in his scripts for Star Trek TOS. Nichele Nichols was ready to quit the series because she felt out of place and uncomfortable but she only remained because Dr. MLK implored her to stay because as a black woman in those days in a leading role on a tv series was groundbreaking. Also, Roddenberry wrote in the script of Season 3 Episode 10 “Plato’s Stepchildren”, to have Kirk kiss Uhura . Supposedly, this was the first on screen interracial kiss on a tv series in entertainment history. People went berserk over that little scene. Though Roddenberry was trying to say something positive about the future between the races, he was not trying to preach or shove his hegemony down the audience’s throats.
What I remember about that episode is how respectful Kirk was to Uhura... I was maybe 17 and naive about the importance of the event... I just saw it as two favorite people in a bad situation acting respectfully towards each other.
We live in a time when people want immediate gratification. People nowadays don’t appreciate the progress that has been made and don’t have the patience that is needed for organic change to occur. They want all the world’s problems solved now. It would be nice but, realistically, change takes time.
Here's the thing, the 60s liberal movement was needed, civil rights, gender equality and racial equality desperately required an update, The neo left or todays left is another subject, its not needed and the pushing of the pendulum has gone way too far, 60s liberalism didn't come with White hate or Trans issues being pushed to minors. However ! The fallout from the drugs, heroin, acid, early crack cocaine...devastated an entire generation. The addiction and broken life's in the 70s from that movement, can still be felt to today! lll leave you with that denizen.
I'd argue that the drug problem is actually that the authorities didn't legalise some drugs thus leading to the currant situation.
The now is not liberal -- and it's not trying to conserve anything, either.
there's was a strange 'transition period; right? between 80-late 2000s, and then fentanyl and we know how that story ends @@markkavanagh7377
Those hippies were all communist.
@@markkavanagh7377 That makes no sense. The government only made them illegal. Their use was what created an addiction crisis.
I happened on "If...." late one night in the 80's, and it really spoke to the life I was living. Glad to see it get a shout out from Chato!
Good point about the casting of Oppenheimer.
One reason why I put the 1960's Star Trek miles above all the other ones, was that it had balls. Too many people can't see past the colourful 60's sensibilities and realize the show was at risk of being cancelled on a near weekly basis because of the challenging stories they tackled. I can't think of a single Star Trek show since 1969 that ruffled anyone's hair since. THey just became too tame and safe. Star Trek SHOULDN'T be safe.
After the first 13 episodes it wasn't going to be canceled. Paramount bought Desilu with a loan based on syndication rights to MI, Star Trek and Mannix. Syndication then required at least 3 seasons 75-80eps and was usually more sucessful if the series was no longer on at night.
That's why Gilligans Island and Lost in Space ended at 3 years....even though both were popular.
The real trick was to keep NBC funding it for three years. Direct to syndication wouldn't really happen till the 80s, but was sorta a thing with british shows like The Avengers and UFO, Space 1999 in America.
The threats of cancelation was often a bluff to keep the actors, writers and directors from insisting on more money.
@@STho205 this doesn't sound like a credible story, given how legendary the studio thought the show was unpopular - hence the cancellation. It's very well known that studios weren't looking at the youth demographic that loved Star Trek when it was on.
@@savageworks it is outlined in Justman and Solow's book "Inside Star Trek The Real Story" written as a memoir in the 90s. It takes the view from the day to day producers and executive's POV, by the last two remaining original runners.
Yes the contract to sell 75 episodes into syndication was made with a promise to buy from a new UHF syndicate in March of 1967. At that point only 18-20 episodes had shot and aired. This is discussed in the last chapter, the one courteously describing Justman's last sentimental meeting of GR before his death.
Roddenberry made up most of the stuff he liked to riff on at convention speeches and the box set VHS or DVDs. He told people what they wanted to hear, always with him as the lone hero.
Another surprise: NBC requested/required more diversity on the bridge after Pilot2 in a memo Spring 1966. They wanted Black and Asian weekly characters sitting center shot. This came as Roddenberry was not planning to offer a role in the series to Takei. Roddenberry said....OK keep him and....I "know" an actress....
Watching your content makes me realize that I’m not alone in thinking our world seems to have gone crazy….maybe we have become too successful???Thank you.
Where have all the average people gone?
Thank you so much for this, @Chato !
I recently had a conversation with one of my older teenagers about "equity" versus "equality."
"Equity" means that all outcomes for all groups are mandated to be the same by government.
"Equality" means that people are given equal opportunities for education and work in life and are rewarded by a free market as their performance merits; it requires equal treatment before the law and respect for property rights.
Equity is a world of ever-shifting goalposts and necessitates the destruction of individual freedom; it inherently discriminates based on race, gender, and any other metric you can create to measure "oppression."
Equality creates opportunity and respects individual liberty.
I know which system I'd rather live under.
I was just a kid in the 60s and I remember it being a pretty tumultuous decade. I also remember begging my mom to let me go to Woodstock when I was 10 years old. Young people that are not intimately familiar with post-WWII history are going to be blind to a lot of things. Also, not everybody that is left of center is "woke".
I wanted to go to the 1970 Isle of Wight festival but my parents said no. I guess we missed out. . . .
As much as it’s the obvious comparison, Americans of the 60s vs Americans of now, the “revolution “ was way older than that. The Russians had thrown of religion, legalised easy divorce and birth control in the 1920s, and paid for that with a degradation of society only surpassed by the Chinese.
Without an actual alternative, humanity threw off what took our entire history to create, like a spoilt two year old throwing it’s food across the room.
Now, because that two year old is in their 60s and 70s, they would like to believe that the shear narcissism of their fight is somehow different from what happens now. It’s exactly the same. It’s not a poor sequel, it’s exactly the same shit show. Only a narcissist would argue that the rebels of the 60s were fighting for black rights and female liberation. They were rebelling, full stop. They won. They won a world where the emotional intelligence of a two year old now rules supreme.
Reality is that EVERY generation wants/needs to rebel against their elders. When we are young we are supposed to be that way as we start finding our way in life. Most of us fortunately grow out of that as we realize that life is real and it has precious little patience for those teenage thoughts based on (mostly partial/incomplete) understandings of politics.
Very well said across the board. I'll never say I'm anything but a left leaning Liberal, and I refuse to have that hijacked by these people who would completely demolish what those words mean as they do so many others. I 100% believe in Equality, not Equity.
I believe in equity.
I've been paying down my mortgage for a while now so I better get my equity if I sell the house. 😆
Equality is for naive idealists.
Nobody is ever truly equal to another in several aspects. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days.
@@georgejones5019 No, Equality is freedom and personal liberty. Equity is enforced quotas to push outcomes in the face of logic, sense, and a basic understanding of humanity.
@@BlazingOwnager You better go back to school as Equality doesnt mean that at all , low IQ weak betas like you are why your side was so easily hijacked ( because you guys to weak and stupid to stop it )
The important thing is that people have the opportunity to achieve their goals. If someone working in an Amazon warehouse wants, for example, to be a TV executive, like Chato enjoyed, they should have the same opportunity to do it that Chato had. That's all, no more, no less.
I grew up in the 60's also. The only thing for sure about comparing times is the music was better and the women were prettier back then, cars were cooler but not as safe as today and TV's are much better and bigger today.
"TV's are much better and bigger today."
And weigh less. And about 50 years from now when the copyright expires on the 1960s and 1970s we will have something to watch on them.
Love your commentary and insight on the times. Thanks for covering topics so wide and varied! Swinging through the jungle of Knowledge is a pleasure with you Paul, as Phil Valentine used to say!
Much appreciated! That's what I"m trying to do.
So true in every way Paul! I once heard a couple of mid-90's teens talking about how the 60's were so "bitchin!" and looked at them and smiled as, like you, a survivor of 'em, "Oh yeah! It was GREAT! We had Viet-Nam, Altamont, Watts, Chicago, drug od's, political corruption, and of course the threat of the Bomb! Swell times! Too bad you missed 'em!" and they just stared. BUT I MUST CORRECT YOU when you say people are EITHER too stupid OR too self-indulgent--as I know you must know....they're BOTH. :) Keep 'em coming!
Hahaha
This is why I watch YT and your channel. Great thoughts and content, Mr. Chato!
I appreciate that!
Rebels Without a Cause...will fabricate their own.
As a product of its time, TOS was very progressive but only because the 60s were so turbulent they needed a show like that.
TNG was fine, but watching it recently was an exercise in trying not to roll my eyes. Almost every episode, the Captain would preach over how 'bad' things are for the guest aliens, and how awesome things are with the Federation. I try and just avoid soap box shows like that, for more nuanced and layers shows like The Expanse, BSG 2000, Babylon 5, etc....
Yeah noticed that too about the show after a rewatch.
I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and as chaotic as the 60s could be, there's a nasty undertone nowadays that wasn't present then.
This is what happens when Billy Jack plays the long game and wins.
As a child of the 70's I don't have a personal frame of reference for the 60's outside of stories from my parents and reruns of old shows like Star Trek, but I still feel where you're coming from. RIP Tommy Smothers
Cancel Pigs are always just a little more equal than the rest of us.
The Smothers Brothers being brothers and having their last name rhyme with brothers was a brilliant marketing move.
It's not progress if it allows the underdog complete license to do whatever they want over others. It is a great way however to create favoritism, imbalance, and artificial division to keep everyone distracted.
I'm an older gentleman, like yourself, and I remember the 60s. It was a really transformative time. Our very perspactives on the world, our economy, and our norms were challenged. People these days are so trivial by comparison. Sadly many of our generation have been corraled into petty issues. Identity politics is all that exists. Gone are the days of challenging "the establishment", now the obsession with minutiae IS the establishment. Your tagline ( "be seeing you"), an homage to the terrific series The Prisoner, has never been more prescient.
To be fair it was with the generation in the 1960's where this idea that we are the most special generation ever, and the past were stupid, or evil started. It's almost insanely easy to trace all the issues with the sense of entitlement and "special" mentality right to the front door of the 60's. I don't think your generation was corralled into the petty issues, that was what they always were. It's why they failed in the end. It's the romantization of that time period that screwed up many of the later generations. Not blaming it completely, but the seeds were planted.
And I thought it was bad 30 years ago when they tried to force Kramer to wear a ribbon.
Thanks Paul! Being a child of the 60's also, the Smothers Brothers were great. Even my fairly conservative parents liked it.
I am a proud product and child of the 60s. I firmly believe that western civilization peaked in 1972.
Love your channel Chato! Insightful, entertaining, and well spoken, as always.
Much appreciated!
6:20 Yes... OG Trek solved all societal "problems" and showed an idyllic progressive future... yet Paramount has totally disavowed and erased the James T Kirk *character* for... -gestures broadly- something, I guess? It must've been television's first interracial kiss that was offensive?
USS daycare! I spewed coffee across my keyboard lol! Well done!
UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH ALERT!!!
Before the desegrigation era black unbroken families was normal and were the most upwardly mobile communities.
I grew up with Smothers Brothers albums in the house, and I have vague memories of them and Pat Paulsen on TV (I was born in 1964). They gave me so much, i salute their comedic genius and bravery.
Yeah, you wanna talk about the 60s? I am a child of the 60s. Also I was born in 1960 and I tell you what as a black person. Seeing the civil rights movement, people talk more about race today than they did back then. You remember the 60s when both black and whites were equally as patriotic in America. both sides. Whether you are. Democrat or Republican All were pro capitalism? Unless you were a hippie.
What you see Chato is merely a reflection of "Forbidden Planet" talk of the Krell and their "Monsters of the ID".
Thanks for the homage to a true great. My Dad was everything you pointed out should hate Laugh In, but loved it.
Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek that is, was, and always be SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS. Roddenberry presented a question with each and every episode. Then asked viewers to think about how to address these questions and find answers to them. Woke on the other hand doesn't present any questions it just tells you WHAT TO THINK. Not doing so gets you branded an IST or a PHOBE for not being "GOODTHINKFUL" (sorry for the Newspeak reference, but you might as well hearing now as some Woker is going to drop it in a sentence soon enough).
Great thumbnail...."Hollywood...before and after"😂
I can remember in my southern Ontario high school assembly in 69, having US Army recruiters giving us a presentation to enlist in the US Army to help stop the domino effect in south east Asia. Yes, a foreign military came to Canada to find cannon fodder for their war.
So being young skulls of mush, a year later all of the high schools in my city staged a walk out against the dress code so that we could wear blue jeans to school, LOL, and it worked.
I was thirteen in 1968 and my understanding of the larger world view was starting to take shape. The events of the late 60’s helped shape me into the conservative man I am today, for better or worse. Goodbye Tommy we’re going to miss you.
That's the inherent flaw with modern activism. You're trying to raise awareness by scaring people but admitting there has been any amount of progress is counterproductive to that effort.
When you look at it objectively, the modern activists have accomplished almost nothing compared to their peers in the 60s and the last thing they can or will do is admit that, particularly if they're also getting a paycheck for their efforts.
This was such an awesome video. Please speak your mind more often like this.
I wish this bit of enlightenment and common sense was made required viewing at every American college campus. It's desperately needed.
I'm flattered.
We should all take a moment to compare time periods in history if we want perspective on today. Historical knowledge is, unfortunately, increasingly rare.
The problem is that you can't "imagine" what you don't know so it's never occurring problem for peoples 👀ツ
==>
In the sense it's just not OBVIOUS like for people who know those things
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Alos I thing right now censorship is much worse than in the 60s, yes as weird as it sounds. TV and movies aren't entertainment anymore, they also must taught people how they should think.
The original Smothers Brothers show was re-run several years ago and I saw all of it. The surprising thing to me was that it was NOT "The Smothers Brothers Political Comedy Hour". It was pretty much a comedy variety show with singing and sketches and very little politics. In 3 years there were probably only a dozen sketches that were actually political in nature.
I just assumed The Smothers Brothers were a figment of Paul's imagination to make his point. Kinda like that canoe man thing.
Thoughtful and poignant as always, I sincerely appreciate your take on things. It certainly feels like things are upside-down from then.
I appreciate that!
Deep south conservative, but we watched The Smothers Brothers, dad was a Gunsmoke guy, didn't care for Bonanza...haha. He might get aggravated but we didn't tune out.
Even Mark Twain didn't like Oberlin College and that was over 100 years ago!
Well you knocked that one out of the park Chato! Here's to a great 2024 for your channel.
Thanks so much.
Great shout-out to those amazing and thought-provoking films of yesteryear.
I'm a child of the 90s. I know that's nowhere near the 60s but with things like the first Gulf War, Oklahoma City Bombing, Waco, Columbine, 9/11, the Iraq War, the I-95 Sniper, the little things like canceling a dead movie star from the past is kinda first world.
Wonderful video .. really insightful and thank goodness there are people like you speaking out
I appreciate that!
Interesting and entertaining work as always.
I'm trying to write a book that will help humanity pick up where 1967 and the Summer of Love left off.
If the world ends, I did not succeed.
I loved the Smothers Brothers as a kid. I’m enjoying watching them again now. RIP Tommy.
"...I think we all need to stand behind the President - And _push..."_
-- Tommy Smothers, some episode of their show
Comedy is _everything's_ kryptonite! Which is why it needs to be protected at all costs.
“If”. Now there’s a film I haven’t seen for a long time, not since the old Broadway Theatre in Hamilton shut down. I think I saw it in a double feature with “Oh Lucky Man!”. It was good preparation for seeing “A Clockwork Orange” (which I’ve seen a great many times).
Now compare the 1970's to today. You were 10 years older in your 20's & I was in my teens.
Oh. My entertainment of the 60's was Saturday morning cartoons. Batman (mostly for The Joker & Catwoman (Julie Newmar) 😍) on ABC with The Green Hornet. My Avengers were John Steed & Emma Peel 😍😍. That British show.
If you want a movie that actually does challenge the left-right paradigm of today, I recommend Vengeance from 2022. And it’s a comedy.
I think they still had adults back in those days. Nowadays, everyone is perpetually 16. The scary thing is that there seems to be a developing "competence gap" between generations. Too many distractions and people no longer taking pride in competence. Also, people seem to have problems controlling their emotions as compared to previous generations.
To boldly go where no they has gone before.
I'm not super concerned about the culture war so much as I am the looming debt crisis, multiple wars abroad, and weakening diplomatic ties with China. Sure you had Vietnam, the Cold war, and some civil unrest in the '60s, but at least you had a decent economy, mostly intact families, and half the country didn't hate the country they lived in.
Super vid, Chato. As a fellow child of the 60's, I approve of everything you said!
Thank you kindly
You speak very eloquently for the 99% of society that's profoundly fed up with this shite! Blessings to you, sir!
Thank you.
Watching movies from 1950 throught the 1970's Will tell you A LOT about what was going on in this country at the time. Its incredible how much was predicted.
My father was in a class with Tommy Smothers. They were both students. That must have been in mid to late 1950s.
I am a child of the 70’s and 80’s. We were hopeful that things were getting better. At least I did. Now we seem to be going backwards.
They were, but things improving doesn't make the elites any money.
Wasn't alive during the 60s but I can for sure say that things were better back then. The degenerate counter culture was up against a middle class America that still had a strong ethics and morals code, belief in God was stronger and the races were still segregated throughout much of the decade. Yes things were indeed much better.
Me, a child of the sixties!
I was a wee lad back then, but I loved the Smothers Brothers -- and still do today. Funny how timeless their "counter-culture" humor was/is still today.
It was kind of funny after watching this, great video by the way, that the ad that came on was for the sequel/reboot of Mean Girls. 😂
The kids today seem like rebels without a cause. Their complaints seem based more on jealousy and entitlement rather than injustice, in spite of claims to the opposite.
Ironically, the problems we face today are trivial in comparison to the 60's but the societal situation is more dire and the stakes far higher
Trivial in comparison for now.
Here! Here!
Bravo my good man, BRAVO!
I was struck by a picture of the crowd from Woodstock, a while back. There wasn't one obese person in the whole crowd, that I could see.
They ate him.
There was also an explosion of creativity in the 1960s, with many new forms of art and music appearing.
As someone who grew up in the 60s, I have no recollection of any of those events.
I DO remember the color yellow...
Dick: "Boil that cabbage down, boy, turn that oat cake brown, the only song I ever did sing is Boil That Cabbage Down! Take it, Tom!"
Tom: "No."
I was conceived in 1966, so I've always been curious about that. Thanks for your take.
Everything Paul says is true. Tom and Dick were dealing with a torrent of issues at the time, but they were fun and funny. In North America these days, everything seems to be boring tedious shit, things that were fun and exciting in the past are now time consuming and annoying. People that can't be cancelled are now attacked on a regular basis, this serves to undermine them. They spend an inordinate amount of time fighting the same stupid battles against their detractors, in turn making themselves boring and ineffective.
We really owe Mark Millar for the Cancel Pig term, it's perfect
Famous picture of John Lennon, fighting security at a smothers brothers show.
Thank you Paul. 😃
I was a liberal hippy back then.. and a conservative now… strangely I feel extremely consistent as I swung from the left to the right.. it’s the society around me that has demanded my changes of affiliation.
I would like to examine this from being born in 69 : what i saw was my parents trying to forge a new reality without an understanding of what it meant. what it meant was the complete destruction of anything that mattered - i know why we became Gen-X because we saw what my grandparents valued ment nothing to them and we became lost in terms of what we are. we should have fought to restore what our parents destroyed , and by that we are guilty for what has been wrought.
The twentysomethings are a dangerous lot as they have been pre-programmed with hippie mentality with fascist ends. they are told what to think , not how to think(as you soo rightly pointed out Paul) and are running around in the cult of self(Chris Hedges) changing the world(i mean destroying it !) and will lead us into a new dark age if we don't stop them !
To know the true merit of a generation , listen to the thought process that makes them act and you get the colours of their flag .. it should be a very red flag to all of us !!!
They romanticized the 60's without realizing the major issues that it caused. Or the massive problems with its mentalities that its children adopted. The biggest being the destruction of the idea that we are all part of a chain of time, that we go thousands of years to the past and infinitely into the future. But we are simply a link. The 60's kids had this idea they were super special time and the best. And all those before were stupid or evil. That is one of the roots of the major issues we have today.
@@als3022 I think that hippie ethos was about believing in their own goodness that they would just figure out by just being - something they have in common with the little shits of today. turns out i saw what the end result of their cult of self - they destroyed everything ! the twentysomethings are going to do it with the endgame philosophy of fascism attached by indoctrination that used to be called education. the boomers had the best of modernity in economics and they followed their hearts desire and became complete capitalists in the 80's - their hippie ideals thrown right out to get the brass ring of power that they have hoarded ever since !
It seems as though those issues back in the day ( I can't speak personally about it as I'm but 35 years old) were more about helping others and what's going on today is baked in selfishness. Not just selfishness but also from a source of peer pressure. People being told to "believe what I say or suffer the consequences" rather than "Please take a moment to hear what I say & give your insight." Being an individual or thinking outside of the box feels like a sin & it all feels that way because it gets in the way of someone's self serving ends.
The USS Daycare! Love it!
As someone who watched the early Apollo launches on a b&w (black and white, not Bower and Wilkins) tv sitting on the lounge room floor mere inches from the screen, I can safely say that the 60s were a time of real change. What have we got now? The breeze from the pendulum swinging just blew past the remaining hair I have left.
R.I.P. Tommy Smothers, Pat Paulsen, and Bob "Officer Judy" Einstein